


To live well

by SecondStarOnTheLeft



Series: 2016 Christmas Fics [4]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Future Fic, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-25
Updated: 2016-12-25
Packaged: 2018-09-11 06:44:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8963788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SecondStarOnTheLeft/pseuds/SecondStarOnTheLeft
Summary: If the best revenge is to live well, then Arya will be sure to live very well indeed.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tywinning](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tywinning/gifts).



> For [Maria,](http://sansalayned.tumblr.com) via me, from [Lauren.](http://joannalannister.tumblr.com)

Spring is curling soft fingers around Winterfell when finally she turns for home.

Can it still be called home, when it has been changed and turned over so many times since last she stood within its walls? When she hardly knows what to expect in those halls she once knew so well?

Nymeria huffs at her side, and Arya reaches out to touch her shoulder.

“Peace, girl,” she says. “Nearly there.”

There’s no wolves left in Winterfell, no true wolves - Ghost still lingers near the Wall, Arya thinks, sure that she saw him pale among the shadows here and there. Bran’s Summer proves that Bran went wandering beyond the Wall, still walking the weirwood groves and howling like a beacon. Rickon and Shaggy are roaming the North, wild in a way Arya envies.

Lady and Grey Wind are gone. Long gone.

Nymeria’s growl draws Arya back to the present, and she smiles.

“Come on then,” she says, heels to her horse’s flank, and together, they trudge through the sludgy snow to Winterfell’s gates. 

 

* * *

 

Sansa lifts her head from her ledgers when Jeyne knocks on her solar door, and smiles. Jeyne is still skittish, and greeting her with a smile does wonders to sooth her.

“Pardon me, Sansa,” Jeyne says, “but there’s a visitor for you, below in the hall.”

“What colours are they flying?” Sansa asks, curious - they haven’t had visitors in a long while, everyone too concerned with setting their houses to right to worry about social calls. “Is it one of our bannermen, or-”

“She has a direwolf with her, Sansa,” Jeyne says, excited and terrified in equal measure, and Sansa’s stomach turns right the way over - shock or the babe, she can’t be certain.

She runs past Jeyne - not without pressing a kiss to her brow, affection where Jeyne expects pain helping her heal - and down to the hall, ignoring Maester Lorcan’s call not to strain herself as she passes him, too frightened to pause. If she hesitates, perhaps-

“Gods be good,” she says, because Arya is not at all what she remembers, or expected. She is smiling, though, and Sansa feels like she might cry.

“You’re as big as a house,” Arya says, crossing the hall with a smooth step that reminds Sansa of their mother. “Seems I arrived just in time.”

 

* * *

 

Sansa’s husband, bastard-turned-steward Larence Snow, arranges a meal for them in Sansa’s solar, and then leaves them be. 

“This suits you,” Arya says, waving to a room unrecognisable as their father’s. “The weight of it all, I mean. You’re thriving.”

Sansa’s hands, curled around her massive belly, are shaking.

“And you?” she asks, one of those trembling hands darting out to take Arya’s where it rests on the arm of her chair. “Are you thriving?”

“I am doing well,” Arya assures her, because she is - she has her men, the Brotherhood that swore themselves to the remnant of her mother and then swore themselves to her, Nymeria has her wolves, and they make a good living, putting down the bandits that have sprung up during the winter. “But, if you would permit it, I think I might do better, if I had somewhere to call home once again.”

It has been twelve years since last they lived under the same roof, but something in Sansa’s joyous tears reassures Arya that things might go easier this time than the last.


End file.
